Washington Commanders wide receiver Curtis Samuel is coming off a lost season. Samuel joined the Commanders to be their WR2 opposite Terry McLaurin but couldn’t shake an offseason groin injury that ultimately derailed his 2021 season before it even began. Now healthy, what can fantasy football managers expect from Samuel in the 2022 season, and is he a good value at his current ADP in fantasy drafts?
Curtis Samuel’s fantasy outlook for 2022
I’ve always been a fan of Samuel. The upside remains there. Samuel is an all-purpose player that can be used as a receiver and a rusher. In 2020, he topped 1,000 total yards, including 200 on the ground. He averaged 14.1 PPR fantasy points per game that season.
Unfortunately, 2021 did not go so well. Samuel was limited to a total of nine targets across five mostly incomplete games. He never played more than 40% of the snaps in a single game.
Somehow, Samuel is still just 26 years old. From 2018-2020, he missed only four games. There’s still hope for him if he can stay on the field.
How the Commanders’ depth chart impacts Curtis Samuel’s fantasy projection for the season
McLaurin is locked in as the Commanders’ WR1. However, their WR2 role is wide open. They tried to fill it last season by signing Samuel and drafting Dyami Brown. We know Samuel couldn’t stay healthy. I viewed Brown as a very weak prospect and am not surprised at how he performed as a rookie. He’s not the answer, either.
Samuel’s primary competition will be rookie first-rounder Jahan Dotson. While the Commanders certainly view Dotson as their WR2 of the future, he’s still a rookie. And Samuel is still a talented player. If Samuel can play like the guy we saw in 2020, he will be able to hold off Dotson for at least this season.
We never really got a chance to see Samuel play with Taylor Heinicke. If we did, we’d probably have concluded Heinicke couldn’t support two fantasy-relevant wide receivers. Carson Wentz should be able to do that.
In 2017, both Nelson Agholor and Alshon Jeffery averaged just over 12 ppg with Wentz at quarterback. Yes, that was Wentz’s MVP-caliber campaign, and no, that guy is never coming back. Nevertheless, Wentz is still a competent passer capable of making McLaurin a fantasy WR2 and another guy a WR3.
Samuel’s ADP for 2022
Samuel has become an afterthought in fantasy drafts. He’s not even being drafted in standard-sized 12-team leagues. Samuel’s ADP is outside the top 180, which is the number of players drafted in an average fantasy football league. He’s currently ranked as our consensus WR72, which is definitely above ADP, but not high enough to the point where we’re going out of our way to draft him.
Fantasy managers don’t need to draft Samuel, either. It’s not like his fantasy outlook is superb. I’m merely suggesting not to forget about Samuel’s name. File it away in the back of your brain and be ready to make an early season move on the waiver wire if Samuel shows signs of life in Week 1.
